Channel 4 commissions pilot Your Time Starts Now from Alex Horne

Channel 4 are piloting a new play-at-home gameshow, Your Time Starts Now (w/t), devised and developed by Alex Horne, creator and host of BAFTA and Rose D’Or winning Taskmaster and Andy Devonshire, founding Series Director on shows including The Apprentice, The Great British Bake Off and Taskmaster.

Set in the Taskmaster universe, the new show builds on the at-home ingenuity of earlier incarnation The Button, which Horne devised and narrated in 2018, and HomeTasking that saw Horne on a mission to entertain a world stuck in 2020’s lockdown.  Your Time Starts Now will see UK households compete against one another while tackling a host of his typically devious tasks without ever leaving their homes. Five teams of friends and families across the UK will need to display creativity, lateral thinking, speed, knowledge and teamwork if they want to win. 

The Button, which aired for one series on the BBC, received wide critical acclaim: with The Radio Times saying, "Genuinely interesting new game show concepts are a rare breed - but luckily, this is one of them… the show is surprisingly simple and effective.”; Digital Spy commenting, "Taskmaster's creators have come up with another addictive triumph”; The i Newspaper noted "Alex Horne, who also created Dave's Taskmaster, is obviously some kind of game-show genius. I'm becoming slightly addicted to his new creation”; with The Times adding "by taking place in living rooms rather than in a shiny studio, finds a bit of originality within the format (compared with the recently exhumed Generation Game)”.  HomeTasking, had over 6 million views across YouTube. It was watched in 125 countries with viewers ranging from the US to the UK and from Moldova to Mongolia.

Alex Horne, creator and host, said: "I've had the pleasure of being in the room while countless comedians have tried and usually failed on Taskmaster and I've learnt that for the most part, that lot are sneaky loveable idiots. With Your Time Starts Now, I'm now excited and intrigued to see how the rest of the country can cope doing simple things under the pressure of time-constraints, dogged rivals and my own snarky gaze. Good luck people of the UK. I shall be watching."

Jon Thoday, Executive Producer at Avalon, said: "After years of being asked by fans about a little-known show we produced nearly 10 years ago called The Button and following the success of HomeTasking in lockdown, we are delighted Channel 4 has given us the opportunity of seeing if combining the spirit of those shows may bring more comedy gold from the brilliant minds of Alex Horne and Andy Devonshire."

Tom Beck, Head of Live Events and Commissioning Editor said: "Wildly inventive, properly funny and rooted in real people being brilliant (and, occasionally, absolutely rubbish), Your Time Starts Now feels perfectly Channel 4. It’s an utterly distinctive celebration of British family life in all shapes and sizes, and I can’t wait see how our families get on as they try and tackle Alex and Andy’s ludicrous tasks.   Why should comedians get all the fun?"

Andy Devonshire, Director and Executive Producer, added: "It's a beautiful gift to have the chance to bring the joy and mischief of Taskmaster into homes and see how families cope with a direct dose of Alex Horne's invention."

Executive Producers for Your Times Starts Now are Alex Horne, Richard Allen-Turner, Jon Thoday, James Taylor and Andy Devonshire (The Apprentice and The Great British Bake Off), who also acts as Director.  The show was commissioned for Channel 4 by Head of Live Events, Tom Beck.